


Closure

by seatbeltdrivein



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Crossdressing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-04
Updated: 2010-12-04
Packaged: 2017-10-13 12:37:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/137418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seatbeltdrivein/pseuds/seatbeltdrivein
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was very nearly strange, being not dead and not alive. Potter had it down to an art, though. He could move through walls, touch walls, be the fucking wall, and Draco still banged his shin and stubbed his toes against the damn things after his head was already sticking out the other side. [Written for hd_parallel]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Closure

The fire blazed hot, lighting night like day, water streaming into it and making no leeway. Draco's skin felt melted into his mask and his suit welded to his skin so that there wasn't a difference between the two layers, just plastic and metals and flesh, all meshed into one thick fabric so finely that his entire body was sure to be a strange parody of a patchwork quilt. His hands latched determinedly onto the hose spewing ineffectual water into the beast of a fire, despite knowing that it had been too long with too little progress. The building was gone, faded into the flame. Lost.

Draco spit into his mask and cursed the weather, God, and anything else his mind could grab onto. "We need to back out," the radio said, crackling into his ear. The captain's voice sounded frantic. "It's done for, we have to go!" It crackled on again, but Draco's hands couldn't let go. The hose kept right on, the mask kept right on, the suit kept right on, and Draco faced down the fire.

"Malfoy!" Another panicked crackle. The flames kicked up, the smoke obscuring Draco's sight. A thin light spread into the night, reaching for him. It grabbed hold and forced him closer, the heat and the pain and all of it all at once too much. His suit and mask abandoned him, the hose withered away into the earth, and Draco was alone.

*

Draco opened his eyes to something like heaven—only it wasn't really heaven, or at least not the one he expected. Heaven, to the best of his and the Pope's knowledge, was not a boy in a skirt standing in some filthy alleyway, watching his body apprehensively from a safe distance. Draco tried to tell him to piss off, or at the very least ask where the hell he was, but nothing was working, not his mouth, and barely his head.

"You really messed yourself up," the skirt-boy said, his nearly translucent form giving him an otherworldly appearance. Draco was nearly certain that the boy was a ghost.

The boy looked amused to see Draco spread across the floor. Pushing away from the stone wall and walking straight through a fallen trash bin, the boy leaned over him, eyes squinting behind his glasses, and his smile faded into a puzzled frown, all traces of mirth disappearing.

Being dead was shittier than Draco had ever imagined it could be, and that really said something about the piss poor afterlife he was in. Draco stared at the boy, his eyes moving from the plain black camisole that sagged slightly against the flat chest, to the short denim skirt, and finally down the boy's hairless legs to his out-of-place trainers.

Draco sneered.

"You're not dead," the skirt-boy said after a moment, as though trying to reassure Draco. His smile was back in place and, if Draco didn't know any better, tinged with glee. "You're…" The skirt-boy drew off and crouched down next to Draco, biting his lips and drumming long white fingers against the disgusting asphalt, the tips passing into the ground. "It's hard to explain. In between, probably. Something like that. Oh, did you have something to say?"

Yes, Draco bloody well did have something to say, _mind shutting up long enough to let me say it?_

"The fuck do you mean, _in between_?" Lips unstuck, Draco let his mouth fly. "How in the hell—" _best not say that word_ , his mind prodded, "—can I be in between, anyway? I either am, or I'm not!"

"Ah," the skirt-boy said, "but you either are, or aren't, _what_?" He looked pleased with himself, and Draco gave it to him. A hell of a question, that, especially coming from some kid barely on the up side of puberty.

"Dead," Draco said. "I'm _dead_."

"Actually, you're not!" Skirt-boy chuckled, _the bastard_. He gave Draco a look and leaned closer, grabbing him by the shoulders and jerking Draco up into a sitting position. Draco caught sight of the boy's hands, the translucent skin firming into an opaque peach colour. "You," he said, "are Draco Malfoy." The boy whispered it and laughed as if he was letting Draco in on some big secret, and Draco felt immediately indignant that the boy should know who he was.

"And who are you?" Draco demanded, trying to push the boy's scrawny arms away. He would have held the boy away, but his arms were like smoke, passing straight through him. He froze and got a good look at the melted, twisted fabric of his uniform burnt into his skin. Draco jerked his arms back to his chest and gave the boy a threatening look.

"Harry Potter," the skirt-boy said, and wasn't that a fucking trip.

"Harry Potter? As in, the shithead I went to grade school with?" Draco's mouth went dry. "What the _fuck_?"

It was hard to take in, but the idiot did look like Potter, skirt or no. He had the same green eyes that were nearly indistinguishable behind thick, unbecoming frames and the same messy hair that Draco had always thought made Potter look like he never bathed enough. The skirt, though, was a bit much. Everything was.

Potter—he looked so _young._

"Yeah, it's, uh, a bit of a weird coincidence," Harry fucking Potter the skirt-boy said, all awkward smiles and steady drumming fingers, the flesh somehow solid enough to pound a steady, dull tapping sound out against the ground. "We're in a similar boat."

"No," Draco said, " _I'm_ in the boat. You're in a skirt!"

"That has nothing to do with this!" Potter scowled, and Draco snorted. "Look, we can help each other!"

"Fuck you," Draco said with utmost sincerity. "I didn't like you before you were dead, and that's not about to change!"

Potter shook his head, looking pained. "You're an adult now; can't you pretend you at least realize it?"

 _No_. "There isn't anything to help, you idiot," he threw back in a lieu of a response. "We're _dead._ "

"If you'd listen," Potter stressed a note of patience, "then you would know that we aren't, in fact, dead at all. We're In Between."

In between, Draco thought snidely. If all _in between_ consisted of was Potter in a skirt, then he wanted nothing to do with it. _Not a damn thing_ and he told Potter as much, in fewer words and with greater raging.

"Draco—"

"Look, this is all just a mistake," Draco insisted. Potter didn't look convinced, and suddenly Draco could no more argue with him than breathe.

"You have to learn," Potter said quietly. "We're here to do that, see, to learn. No more mistakes, especially the stupid kind that lands people like us in the In Between. Do that, and we're golden. See?" Potter looked into the subject, as though he was finally getting the chance to read a speech he'd been preparing his entire life. Draco rediscovered his hands, his feet, his whole body, the feeling glowing through him out of fucking nowhere. "We learn, and we go home."

 _Understanding_ , Draco thought, wiggling his fingers, somehow able to stand upright again.

"Yeah, Potter," he said. "Golden."

*

It was very nearly strange, being not dead and not alive. Potter had it down to an art, though. He could move through walls, touch walls, _be the fucking wall,_ and Draco still banged his shin and stubbed his toes against the damn things after his head was already through the other side. The angrier he became, the more he faded, and it turned into a vicious circle that left Potter responsible for pulling him out of the ground every time he faded through in the middle of a shrieking rage.

They weren't far from where they began, in the heart of London. The buildings cluttered around them, everything cast over in a stale grey shade. It was depressing, as though the In Between had manifested itself into a fog and settled down over the city, following Draco wherever he went.

As if the fog wasn't bad enough—and it was because Draco kept losing Potter in it—the In Between was deadly quiet. It was strange, seeing people on the streets, watching cars go by, life passing on around them, but being unable to hear it.

In the face of such a deafening quiet, Draco filled the silence the only way he knew how: by asking question upon question and forcing every drop of knowledge on the In Between from Potter's mind.

"How long have you been here, anyway?" Draco had to ask. Potter's apparent aptitude for ghostliness had left him wondering. "You look so young, haven't changed much at all from when I last saw you." Draco eyed him critically. "Well," he amended, "aside from the skirt."

It was true. Potter barely looked three years, if that, older than when Draco had last seen him. Sure, Potter had a few inches on his thirteen-year-old self, but the differences seemed to stop there. He was still scrawny, still pale, still looking a complete mess. If Potter hadn't dressed the way he was, Draco likely would have recognized him immediately. The sheer absurdity of Potter's outfit threw him for a loop.

"I don't know." Potter shrugged. "What year is it?" He looked uncomfortable.

"2001," Draco responded, and Potter froze and stared, his eyes wide behind his glasses.

" _2001_?"

"You're supposed to be my age," Draco said. "You're twenty-one, right? We're the same age. Why in the world do you look like that?"

"Draco," Potter spoke quietly, his expression one of disbelief. "I got stuck here in 1996."

"Christ…"

What else was there to say? Potter looked bitter.

"Why are you still here? Wherever here is," Draco added. "If we're supposed to learn, and then leave, why haven't you?"

"It'd be nice if it were that easy. I don't know, though. That's just it. The people I've seen here don't seem to have anything in common." Potter stared wistfully at him. "We're all cut off too soon, maybe? Dunno, really, what I'm supposed to be learning, but I sure as hell hate having been stuck in the same outfit for—what was it?—five years!" Potter trailed off with a hollow chuckle, staring at the ground. A car passed straight through him, and Draco concentrated hard on his own arms and gave Potter a push, shoving him out of the middle of the road.

 _Typical of a man in a skirt,_ Draco thought, _to be worried about his outfit._

"How did you die, anyway?" It was the one question Draco had been dancing around, unsure of. It seemed like such a personal thing to ask of a dead man—but no, he remembered. They weren't even dead. They didn't even have _that_ to hold on to.

Potter's lips went thin for a brief moment and he shook his head. "We're not dead, idiot. Remember?" He tried to laugh, but it sounded pathetic.

"Then how did you end up—"

"Later," Potter said, cutting the question short. "Let's go."

"Where?"

"Anywhere!" Potter waved at the ghostly city around them, his arms moving straight through a man jogging down the sidewalk. "We can see them, everything that's happening, if we want. Like ghosts. We can go anywhere we'd like!"

For Potter, that seemed to be the single redeeming quality of the In Between. He was like a child in a petting zoo, and Draco's stomach flopped nauseatingly at the stark reminder of how young Potter must have been when he got there. Potter was still a boy, a teenage boy, his mind static in the In Between.

How dreary that must be.

"After all," Potter continued. "We're here to learn, remember? I can honestly say that after having spent time here in London, I can't think of a single thing that could help either of us."

"Fine, then. To learning," Draco said, and walked straight into a wall, his arm the only thing that managed to fade through. Potter laughed, clutching his sides and tugging down the bottom of his denim skirt.

Draco would _definitely_ have to work on that.

*

Draco watched Potter. He watched Potter watching the people walking up and down the streets, watched him wanting the life. He watched Potter in his stupid skirt with his stupid trainers, looking like a stupid girl of all things. He looked natural in it. Potter, Draco thought, could damn well have been a girl, and a hell of a looker at that, if he only had a more effectual wardrobe.

Not that Draco cared or anything, because he _didn't_. Potter was queer and always had been.

"Can you stop?" Potter shifted, an unconscious and telling movement, his knees pressing together and his arms crossed over his flat chest like some maiden protecting her virtue. Draco sneered and kicked the ground, almost losing his balance when his foot went straight through to God-knew-where.

"Stop what?" Play it dumb. It wasn't as if Draco wanted to go around looking at boys in skirts, especially not the _Potter_ sort of boys in skirts. He was just standing there, so where the hell else was Draco meant to look?

"Staring." Potter said it.

Draco looked at the brick of a little shop past Potter's shoulder, watching the man inside roll out pastries. "I'm not staring."

"You are." Potter was certain.

 _Well, fuck him_ , Draco thought, and reminded himself not to kick anything.

Back and forth, hours and days. Draco didn't know how long they'd been wandering through London, kicking up a big fat nothing as far as getting to one end or the other of the In Between was concerned. Potter looked constantly on edge, and Draco wanted to hate him for it, would have tripped him up for the sake of the old days if only he could be solid when he wanted to be.

Only it was _Potter_ , and who knew how long the bastard had been on his own? Years of that place and Draco figured he'd be mad enough to wander around in a skirt, too!

"How long are we going to stay here?" Draco watched Potter staring into the window of a popular shop for teenage girls, his hands skimming over the glass reverently, desire plain in his eyes. " _Potter_. Do stop salivating over women's clothing while I can see you. It's disgusting."

"Hm." Potter frowned and stepped back, facing Draco. "You're such a prat."

"So you've said. Now, really, how long do you plan on staying here?" Draco asked again, voice coloured with irritation. "We've been here for—" He paused, frowning. How long had he been there? It was difficult to tell. No noise, no indicator of a day—there wasn't even a proper night-time to go by.

For all Draco knew, he and Potter might have been there for another five years.

"Where else could we go?" Potter asked, crossing his arms.

Draco gritted his teeth. "How the hell should I know? You're the one who talks all that rubbish about—about _learning_ , or whatever it is! Why don't you tell me?"

"I just really don't know," Potter murmured. "I've never—I just don't know."

"Then we'll start from the beginning," Draco said. It would be the logical thing to do. "Where did you die?" Potter hesitated, looking away, and Draco rolled his eyes. "For fuck's sake, Potter! I'm not asking _how_ —"

"Not dead, remember?" Potter's smile was weak.

"That wasn't the question," Draco pressed. " _Where_?"

"Little Whinging." Potter sighed. "But I don't think—"

"Then we'll go there." Draco frowned at the horrified expression darkening Potter's features. "What?"

"We—we can't go there!" Potter's voice was panicked.

"Yeah? Why the hell not?" Draco snapped. "I haven't heard any ideas from you!"

"It—I just don't see how it makes any sense, is all." Potter folded his arms, turning his head and setting his mouth into a stubborn line.

Rolling his eyes, Draco huffed. "God, you're useless. Think about it. That town is the only connection we have. Potter, there has got to be a reason why we're here together."

"A coincidence," Potter suggested weakly.

"I don't believe in coincidences."

"Your life must be very complicated, then," Potter snapped back, "if you have to find a reason for every little thing!"

"Oh, now you're just being unreasonable!" Draco scoffed, but Potter was already walking away, shoulders set. "Potter! Damn it." Draco seemed to be spending a ridiculous amount of time chasing after the idiot boy, and he couldn't help but wonder when Potter would just _stay put_ so they could figure out whatever it was that they needed to know.

"Wait a minute!" Draco jogged after him, rolling his eyes when Potter walked straight through the door of a shop. When Draco tried walking through, he slammed his head on the wood and stood in the doorway, cursing.

"Potter, will you just come back! Fuck, I'm not saying we have to—I don't even need to know, all right?" Draco paused, waiting for a response. After a few beats of continued silence, he sighed, letting his forehead fall against the door, closing his eyes.

It was the first time Draco had wished he wasn't so _solid_ since arriving in the In Between.

"You don't want to know?" Potter's voice was muffled by the door.

"No. I just think we should try going there. It makes sense." As much as anything made sense in their situation, in any case. "I won't—You don't have to tell me anything."

"…Promise?" Potter's voice was that of a child's, and Draco thudded his forehead against the hard wood of the door a few more times before answering.

"Yeah, Potter. I promise."

*

Potter, like a frightened cat, had to be coaxed out of the shop. Draco waited, mind focused, until he managed to at least get his arms through the door of the shop and drag Potter, kicking and screaming, out.

After that, convincing the boy to leave London wasn't too difficult.

"So, you've just been here?" Draco asked. They were still in the city, slowly making their way out of the crowded, winding streets and into the suburban landscaping of Little Whinging. In the In Between, walking felt much less a chore and more a luxury, a step in any direction the equivalent to stretching one's wings, in Draco's mind. Everything felt so surreal, oddly free.

He wasn't sure how he should feel about it.

"I've had no reason to leave," Potter said with a shrug. The further out they walked, the more withdrawn the boy became, curling into himself and leaving a timid soul in his wake.

"But if you died in Little Whinging, how did you get to _London_?"

"Look, I don't understand it any more than you do!" Potter huffed. "If you're so smart, where did _you_ end?"

"End?" Draco scoffed. " _Died_."

"Not dead," Potter reminded him.

"Not in London," Draco admitted.

They wandered for what seemed an eternity. London's buildings and streets and city dwellers bled away into grass and country and fields and people who walked places without grumbling about it.

Potter stuck close to Draco's side, his head barely at Draco's shoulder. Draco felt awkward next to him, too large, too old. What was left of his uniform clung to him, melted and twisted, and Draco was certain it should have felt uncomfortable. He should have a lot of things, really, but instead he found himself just angry—angry that he should be stuck in such a grim world, angry that he was stuck there with _Potter_ of all people.

Angry that he still hadn't woken up to find it had all been a ghastly nightmare.

Little Whinging was a tiny town, and they were very nearly there when the sky dimmed, the fog rolling restlessly around them. It was nothing Draco had seen before, and the sight sent fear pooling in the pit of his stomach.

"What's happening?" Alarmed, he looked at Potter, who didn't look much better. The boy's eyes had widened, and his body was flickering rapidly from a milky-white transparent to the more familiar solid flesh. Panic shown clear in Potter's eyes, and Draco felt afraid.

"We—we need to get somewhere," Potter said, looking around. His neck turned so fast Draco thought it might break.

"Potter, what the hell—"

"There, come here!" Potter grabbed Draco's hand, dragging him. They were on a small road, quaint houses on either side. It looked to be an idyllic sort of street, one that his mother would have appreciated.

Potter dragged him through the lawn of a tall two-storey home with an empty driveway, his entire being pulsing with fear.

"You have to fade through the door, Draco. Can you?" Potter's voice sounded as though it was coming through a wall. The fog was rolling so fast, the wind kicking up, and nature itself seemed to become volatile, ready to strike.

"Yeah," Draco said, swallowing roughly. "I think I can."

Potter waited anxiously beside him, and Draco closed his eyes, pressed his hands to the door, and prayed to any deity who would listen.

When he fell through and hit the floor on the other side, Potter tumbled in after him, tripping over Draco's prone form in his panic and landing on Draco's back.

"Sorry!" Potter squeaked, rolling off. "I'm sorry!"

"You're heavier than you look," Draco groaned, sitting up. "What was that all about?"

"I tripped," Potter said.

"No, did you really? Don't play stupid with me, Potter. Outside! What was all that about, pushing me in here?"

"There's no one home, is all," Potter said carefully. "It was getting dark, so I thought we could take a break."

"Is poor Potter afraid of the dark?" Draco laughed. "You're hell-bent on being a little girl, aren't you?"

Potter's face flushed an angry red, and he pushed himself off the ground, sneering. "Fuck you, _Malfoy_."

Potter stomped up the stairs, and Draco didn't bother following him, not even when every light in the house flickered to life.

Outside, the storm carried on.

*

When the dark faded back to grey, the world a little brighter, Potter still refused to leave the house, which frustrated Draco beyond reason. Little Whinging was visible from the front porch, and every glance he caught of the distant town out the window left the sour taste of time poorly spent in Draco's mouth.

His father would have been disgusted.

If nothing else, Draco managed to get a good deal of practice in on controlling his newer, more temperamental abilities. When he finally convinced Potter that they were wasting time cooped up in the empty house, Draco was able to fade through doors and walls without having to focus.

*

Little Whinging was barely a dot on the map, a boring middle-of-nowhere type town that barely anyone outside of it knew existed. Draco certainly hadn't before his father had enrolled him in Little Whinging Primary as a child. It was a town more for the dying than the living, and the idea of being bound to the depressing town left Draco ill.

No wonder Potter was the way he was.

The boy was on edge from the moment they'd stepped out of the house, Potter's hands clutching at the railings on the porch, white-knuckled, before taking a deep breath in and letting go.

No matter what Draco tried, Potter refused to say a single word as they walked toward the town, his eyes downcast and lower lip stuck out in a subconscious gesture. Draco eventually gave up and tried to remember his way around the small town. Potter, it appeared, would be no help.

After wandering through grey, foggy streets, Draco conceded that perhaps coming to Little Whinging had been a mistake after all. He turned, fully intending to give Potter his way and leave, when he caught sight of the pained, fear-filled look in Potter's eyes, the boy's mouth hanging open. His hands clenched into fists at his sides, and his legs were taut with resistance. Fight or flight.

"Potter?" Draco asked, taking a cautious step closer, like approaching a frightened animal.

Potter shook his head, shaggy hair flopping into his eyes. He looked down and did not answer.

"Potter," Draco tried again, strained from the effort of infusing patience into his words. "Are you quite well?"

"Yes," Potter said, but he was shaking his head, his voice not faring much better.

They weren't anywhere frightening. The sky was still bright enough, the grey fog tinged with enough light to seem like nothing more sinister than an overcast day, but Potter looked—there was no other word for it—

Potter look terrified, his whole body trembling under the weight of some great fear come to life. Nothing they'd come across in Little Whinging was even remotely threatening, and certainly nothing had looked worth the terror emanating from Potter's entire being.

Puzzled, Draco followed the line of Potter's panicked gaze, eyes falling on the entrance to a dirty alleyway—a dodgy-looking crack only slightly wider than two men standing shoulder-to-shoulder—planted between a grocery store and a liquor store. Potter caught him staring at the dingy little backstreet and abruptly shifted his focus to his own bare knees.

Draco scowled, frustrated at his own ignorance.

"What the fuck are you looking at?"

"Nothing." Potter's voice was rough. "Let's just go, all right?"

"Go? Go _where_?"

"I don't know!" Potter cried. "Anywhere, let's just leave! There's nothing here for us."

Potter couldn't look up, and Draco was suddenly reminded of something Potter had said. He'd died in Little Whinging.

Draco looked at the backstreet, frowning. He looked back at Potter.

"All right," he said. "Sure, we'll leave. I was actually thinking we could try one more place, you know, before we left altogether."

"All right," Potter said. He already looked brighter. "Where?"

"I was hoping to see where you—where you almost died." There wasn't a better way to say it. Draco nearly felt guilty for saying it at all, and he only just managed to not cringe at the despair that clouded Potter's face.

"Why would you need to see that?" Potter asked, voice wavering.

"Don't you think it's important?" Draco looked back at the alley, and Potter followed him.

"I don't know. I don't want to think about it." Potter's face shuttered, and he took a step away from Draco.

"You have to," Draco said simply. "We're here, aren't we?" He paused, watching Potter. "Was this it?"

"Yeah," Potter said, offering nothing else.

"What happened?" Draco prompted. It felt wrong, trying to get under Potter's skin like that. It felt close to the way they'd been in life, always picking at each other and making the other miserable. As children, there'd been nothing Draco loved more than tormenting Potter.

Now, the miserable air around the boy sucked the joy out of _any_ interaction with him.

"I don't want to talk about it," Potter said stubbornly. He wrapped his arms around himself, putting more distance between himself and Draco.

It would've been great if they could have left it at that, if Draco didn't need to press Potter for details. He didn't even _want_ to know, not really. Draco wasn't so stupid that he couldn't put the pieces together to make a vague picture of it for himself.

Taking a fortifying breath, Draco reached a hand over and grabbed one of Potter's, jerking him closer.

"There isn't anything I can do," he said, voice low. Potter kept his gaze anywhere but on Draco, but his fingers curled around Draco's hand. His grip was tight, clammy.

"This is where I died," Potter murmured.

Draco looked again at the alleyway, wanting to be certain. "Here?"

"Yes," Potter said. " _This_ is where I died."

 _This_ was a dingy, filthy little alleyway. This reeked of all things foul. Draco looked away, eyes closed.

"What happened?" He'd asked it once. Potter didn't talk about it then, and Draco wasn't sure he really wanted the boy to tell him.

Draco kept his mouth shut.

"I was wearing a skirt." Not a bit of mirth there. Potter looked grim, his eyes stuck on that disgusting back alley. "I was sixteen, and I was a boy in a skirt."

"So?"

"So, that didn't go over well." Potter laughed, the sound frigid and bitter. "Little Whinging wasn't known for its tolerance, but I was impatient, is all. Didn't think I should have to be someone else when all I wanted was—" Still laughing, hollow as ever. "—to be me, see?"

No, Draco didn't see, but Potter kept right on laughing through it. "So, what? Someone—killed you?"

"Tried," Potter said, and Draco told him that he'd never heard of such a stupid reason to want to kill someone. "Of course it was stupid," Potter spat. "But I was, too. I thought—thought people didn't look at that sort of thing. Stupid of me to think people were rational." Potter shook, staring at the alleyway.

There was no telling how long they stood there, Draco watching Potter watching his own almost-death. In the end, he grabbed Potter's arm and shook him, hard. _Time to go,_ he tried to say, but Potter looked miserable, so instead he just pulled him away, down the small streets with no particular destination in mind, walking until the alley was gone from sight.

"Where to?" Draco tried. Potter still looked shaken, and his hand felt too light in Draco's grip, the skin fading, losing solidity.

"We should stay." Potter's voice was thick. He looked like a girl in general, but with his eyes red-rimmed behind his glasses, his shaggy hair falling over his brow, cheeks flushed, he looked even more so. Enough like one that Draco allowed himself to put an arm around the boy's waist and let him lean on him, the two of them sinking down until they both sat on the sidewalk, curled into to each other. Potter hid his face in Draco's shoulder, and Draco pretended as though he didn't feel Potter shaking and getting his shirt all wet.

He spared a brief thanks to whatever deity kept watch over them that he hadn't accidentally pulled Potter straight through the pavement into the earth. _Catharsis_ , he thought, tightening his grip around Potter. Closure.

Draco couldn't even imagine.

*

Little Whinging grabbed hold of them and wouldn't let go. It became the same as London, the rolling fog and grey atmosphere too familiar. Draco couldn't remember for the life of him why he'd thought it a good idea to go there.

Potter still couldn't walk in the south side of the town, and his gaze constantly pulled toward the direction of that alley, his mind playing things on repeat that Draco couldn't even imagine.

Wandering, it seemed, was all a part of the experience. They could sit, lie down, and stand for hours on end. The hardest thing about existing in the strange half-world was touching things. Draco found it damn near impossible to keep his skin opaque.

For the longest time, the only thing he could successfully touch was Potter, and wasn't that just a joke?

*

In the back of Draco's mind festered a separation, a malignant tumour driving away the ability to remember before the In Between. Before Potter and his skirt and his shitty back alleyway.

One day, Draco picked up a newspaper. He did it without thought, and seeing the thing in his hands was enough to give him a heart attack, had he been in a state for such a thing to be possible. They were sitting in a café, still in Little Whinging, with Draco perched carefully on the booth seat. His fingers wrapped around the rolled up paper, a covetous moment. He unrolled it with trepidation.

Potter stared. "That's—"

"I can touch things!" A sharp exhilaration warmed him, and Draco didn't bother to stop the grin breaking across his face, his lips stretched and gums and teeth showing as he unrolled the thing.

"Huh," was all Potter said, as if the bastard couldn't even be impressed. He'd been doing it for _ages_ , so Draco supposed he just didn't care. It didn't matter anyway. Why should he care about impressing Potter or anything else about the skirt-wearing bastard? Looking away from pale, smooth ankles jetting up from tattered trainers, he read the newspaper for the first time in a very long time.

"The date—" Draco started, trailing off. His stomach dropped.

"What about it?" Potter asked, leaning forward and propping himself up on an elbow.

"It says it's—" Draco stopped. It couldn't be, hadn't been so long.

"What?"

"It was September," Draco said. "And now it's _January_!"

"Time passes differently here." Potter shrugged. "At least it hasn't been another five years!"

But there it was. Draco's life back on the other side was wasting away, and he didn't even know _how_. The relaxed atmosphere shattered, and Draco couldn't figure out why he was still sitting there with Potter, staring at the bastard's legs and wasting his not-life away.

Little Whinging was sucking out what was left of his soul.

Potter watched him fall apart with tired eyes, hand halfway across the table, frozen midair. Draco's arms around Potter felt like an eternity ago and Potter's arms around Draco wouldn't cut it, wouldn't _work_.

"Let's go somewhere else," Potter said, as though that would be enough, but Draco shook his head, staring dully at the table.

"We're stuck here, aren't we?" The fear crept into his voice for the first time. There was no learning to do, no finding their way home. There was just the In Between, just Potter in his skirt and Draco in a half-melted uniform.

"No. I don't think we are." Potter sounded confident, but how did he know? Draco wanted to shake him, demand to know the reasoning behind the thought. "There—we aren't the only people," Potter continued. "We aren't the only ones who've done this, and they're gone, right?" He looked determined, green eyes bright through dark bangs. "It's like, when I've seen them, they're like us. Like us, and then they figure out whatever it is, you know? If we can just—"

"But we can't, Potter! We don't even know what we're meant to be finding out!" That was it, the crux of the matter, the centre of their despair. There were no set directions, no instructions on how to survive in what might as well have been a wasteland for all the good it did them. Draco, stuck in his half-melted uniform; Potter, forever sixteen in a jean skirt and sneakers. It was beyond maddening—it was _terrifying_.

Silence settled between them. Draco didn't know how long he sat there, eyes trained on the tiny print proclaiming the date. When he finally looked up, Potter looked sad. Tired. He'd set his glasses on the tabletop, one hand at his mouth as he chewed the nails to nubs. It was a wonder that he even _could._

"All right." Draco dropped the paper, letting it fall to the floor. "All right."

"What?"

"Let's get out of here," Draco said. "We have to—I'll go along with you." He'd made up his mind. "We'll do whatever the hell it is we're supposed to, and then we'll get out of here. It can't be that hard."

"I hope not." Potter spoke softly. "Thank you."

"Sure, whatever," Draco said gruffly. "Let's just get out of here."

"We should probably wait. It's getting dark again," Potter said nervously, eyes glancing out the windows. The sky was, indeed, dimming, the grey bleeding into a startling darkness. "We should just stay here."

"What is it with you and the dark?" Draco demanded. "We've been wandering for—"

"For who knows how long, _yes_ , I am aware," Potter finished curtly. "But we haven't been in the dark, and Little Whinging is a secluded area—"

"Potter, we're dead. It's not as if anything could happen!"

"You still don't get it, do you?" Potter looked frustrated. "We aren't dead," he said, "but we could be."

"Could be. What do you mean?" Dread settled heavily in the pit of Draco's stomach. "Potter, _what do you mean_?"

"It's like I said, we're here to—to learn, right? To prove we can go back to the world."

"If we died—"

"We weren't meant to!" Potter cried. "We're here because we weren't meant to die, but we can't just go back. We have to earn it." Potter looked frustrated, as though he couldn't quite verbalize what he meant.

"And if we don't earn it?" Draco almost didn't say it he so dreaded the answer. "What happens then?"

"Then we die." Potter's voice was flat. "And not in a pleasant way."

"How do you mean?"

"Like I said, you aren't the first person who's come through since I've been here. A lot of people have, really. You'd be surprised at how many people get themselves killed when they shouldn't."

"Potter, the point, please."

"Right." It seemed as if Potter wasn't willing to divulge the information, much to Draco's irritation. He'd never seen Potter so reluctant, even when they were standing in front of that damned alley. "There are…" Potter paused and glanced again at the window. "Things that live here, in the dark."

"Things?" Draco demanded, alarmed. "What do you mean— _things_?"

"I don't know much about them, myself. But if you wander where you shouldn't go, that's it. Things get you."

"That's ridiculous," Draco spat. "You probably still believe in the bogeyman!"

"If you'd seen it eat someone, you would, too!" Potter shot back. "Think about it! Do you honestly suppose souls just wander, stuck here in between the living and the dead forever? Of course not! There are things out there," he jerked his head toward the rapidly darkening sky, "that are around just to clear us out. If we don't prove ourselves, then _they_ take care of us."

"But you've been here for years! Why haven't you been eaten, or whatever it is? You obviously haven't proven yourself yet."

"How should I know?" Anger hung heavy in Potter's words. "I haven't wandered where I shouldn't have, though, I can tell you that—"

"Great," Draco snapped. "Even in the afterlife, you're a golden example of what we all should be doing—"

"Don't you dare," Potter hissed, fists balled on top of the table. "I haven't put up with your shit in years! This isn't grade school, _Malfoy_!" Draco looked away at the pointed use of his name. "We don't have a choice but to be here, and we don't have the option to fight! Pretend for a moment," he pleaded, "pretend you don't hate me so we can get out of here. Neither of us can do this alone!"

He'd never heard Potter beg before, not to him and certainly not to anyone else when they'd gone to school together. Potter fought tooth and nail, never caring that it seemed as if everyone hated him. It was almost painful to see the breakdown in his eyes, and if Draco were to be honest with himself, it made the fear playing at the edges of his subconscious that much more real.

"Fuck _you_ , Potter!" Draco kicked out of his seat, stumbling to his feet. He was stuck there, they were _stuck_ , and no amount of proving themselves would change that. Potter had been isolated there for five fucking years, so where did he get off saying they could escape? Where the fuck did he get off? "I don't have to listen this," Draco said.

"Draco—"

"Oh, so it's Draco now, is it? Just shut your fucking mouth, Potter. Nothing will change this," he said. "Nothing will change that we're here or that we're never going to be able to leave!" His voice was rough, tinged with panic. He kept thinking of his mother's casket as it lowered into the ground, of not even seeing his father in the past two years. Draco would die a disappointment.

Filled with a terrified rage, Draco tore from the little café, Potter's cries for him to stop going unheard. He would get out of Little Whinging and out of the In Between—he swore it to himself over and over, a mantra.

He ran straight past all the shops, the little houses, the alley Potter had been attacked in. He kept right on running until the streetlights of Little Whinging were just barely visible in the distance, a soft glow invading the thick foliage just beyond its borders.

Night had fallen quickly, and Draco pushed Potter's tale on the dangers of the dark from his mind, driven forward by the sole purpose of escaping the hellish purgatory he was trapped in. Potter could stay there and rot, but Draco wasn't about to spend five years sitting on his hands. Ignoring the unsettling feeling at the thought of leaving Potter alone, Draco pressed on.

About twenty feet ahead of him, something moved. Something large. Draco froze, ignoring the cold prickle of dread, and narrowed his eyes to see through the invasive dark spread so thickly around him. Whatever it was moved again, and Draco stepped back to the side, letting the small thread of light carrying out from the town fall onto his path. Nothing happened at first, and then he saw it: strange twisted legs, each longer than his own body, darker than the night around them.

He took an involuntary step backwards, stumbling into a tree, his heart slamming against his chest. The thing froze, one leg still held out in the soft light, as though it was trying to listen for him. Draco put a hand over his mouth, his breath suddenly too loud, too obvious. _The thing knows I'm here_ , he thought, panicked. It knew, and it was searching for him.

 _There are things that live here, in the dark._

He should have expected as much, that there would be things in the In Between that he'd not so much as thought possible of existing in the real world. Potter's warning sounded again in his mind, his subconscious' way of berating him. In the dark, the thing moved, long legs creeping toward him from all directions, the distant glow from the town lighting its way.

Without thinking, without hesitating, Draco pushed away from the tree and ran, his feet hitting the ground loudly as he backtracked, mind set on getting back to Little Whinging, back to Potter. Back to safety.

Behind him, the thing moved, strange dragging, hissing noises following his every step. Little Whinging looked so far away, as though the town was moving backwards, drawing further and further back the closer he should have been. Something brushed his back and Draco sprinted forward, sweat slipping down his forehead, the air rushing in and out of his lungs so fast that his throat burned, flashes of white flaring up in his vision. He ran faster than he'd ever thought he could, and some vague, hysterical part of his mind jabbered ceaselessly, thinking, _the captain always said I was too lazy, he'd be impressed now, oh God, oh God—_

Another brush, harder, this time on his upper arm, and pain exploded at the site, catching Draco by surprise and sending him tumbling face first to the ground, open mouth sucking in bits of grass and dirt. He hadn't thought it possible to feel anything physical in that world and found himself wishing he'd been right. He couldn't see even a foot in front of him, the light from the town no longer visible from where he lay prone. The thing was there, still lurking. It had receded a distance, but Draco could hear it.

He thanked whatever god there was that he couldn't see it.

But the strange, hollow hissing was enough. He could hear it dragging, moving closer, and he closed his eyes to the dark and pulled himself away from the noise, inch-by-inch, fingers clawing into the soft dirt floor. The thing made no move to speed up, apparently satisfied with the injury it had inflicted on its prey. It was in no hurry.

Draco's arm was killing him, the pain so sharp that even the tiniest movement was too much. His shoulder felt wet, and he knew instinctively that he was bleeding, despite being convinced only moments earlier that he didn't have any blood to bleed.

He wondered where Potter was. The boy—no, he reminded himself, Potter only looked like a teenage boy—had warned him. _If you wander where you shouldn't go, that's it. Things get you_ , Potter had said. He'd been right.

The thing gave another, louder hiss, and Draco flinched reflexively. He was going to die, and being eaten by whatever the fuck that thing was had to be worse than burning alive. He'd take fire to that any day. He'd take anything, if only not to have it happen—

 _This isn't happening,_ he tried. _This isn't real._ But there was no sudden miracle, no flash of lights followed by the revelation that he really was just dreaming all of it. The In Between was as real as the living world, and Draco had broken its rules.

The wait was over. The thing gave a sudden, great lurch, and a single leg crept close and latched onto his wounded arm. Draco pulled, wincing and trying desperately not to scream, because who knew how the thing would react to sudden noises! The blood was what seemed to be attracting it. His uniform, already singed and melted in places, gave way, ripping at the shoulder, and the skin beneath it burned at the touch, the flesh splitting. He could feel the blood trickling to the surface, pooling out, and with sudden clarity, Draco knew that was it. He was dying.

There was a steady light heading towards him when he opened his eyes, illuminating the many legs around him, the wound on his shoulder. Maybe, a tiny part of Draco's subconscious spoke, it was God. Maybe God was coming to take him by the hand and send him over, whether to heaven or hell he had no clue, but that had to be it. He was going, and Potter would spend the rest of his fucked eternity wondering where that idiot Malfoy had gone. But—no. The light wasn't God coming to pass judgment, Draco suddenly realized. It was—it was a car, speeding over the grass spread between him and Little Whinging, horn blaring and brights flashing. He knew without question that Potter was the driver.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" The thing released him, spindly, grasping arms drawing away frantically from the flood of light. Draco managed to get himself moving just in time to roll to the side and avoid being run over. "Potter!" he shouted, because who else could it be?

The car sped past him, skidded to a stop, and rounded, wheels tearing up the dull, giving earth. For just a moment, the creature's hissing overtook the revving of the engine, but as soon as the car began moving again, heading directly toward both it and Draco, the thing fled, wild crashing noises following it deep into the forest.

The car jerked to a stop a few feet away, the door popping open, and Draco got a running start and dived straight in. Potter didn't say a word to him, just took off again, the door still swinging open and Draco's legs dangling out. Draco grabbed Potter's bare thigh, digging in hard, and yanked himself all the way in, finally breathing again once the feel of the ground skimming his boot-clad toes was gone. He hooked a leg in the armrest of the door, pulling it shut, and stared open-mouthed at the boy sitting calmly behind the steering wheel. The car pulled to a stop just at the edge of Little Whinging, under the first street light.

"I told you." Potter's voice shook, and the illusion of calm shattered, white-knuckled hands gripping the steering wheel. "I fucking told you!" His entire body was fading, his hands falling straight through the steering wheel. Potter looked like the fog had taken the form of a human.

"Like hell you did," Draco tried to say, but all that came out was a pathetic, incoherent noise as he buried his face in Potter's leg, trying to regulate his breathing and getting a face full of denim skirt.

"Mal— _Draco_ …" Potter tried to push a hand into his hair, and Draco felt a strange, cold sensation against his scalp. Potter's voice lost the anger, taking on a soothing quality, and Draco breathed easier, pushing away the humiliation of the moment because he had _almost died_. It hadn't seemed real to him, even being in the In Between, but it was hard to say he was just dreaming when some sort of otherworldly monster had just tried to make a meal of him.

"I'm sorry," Potter said, and Draco's head went straight through Potter's knee, hitting the seat. He jerked his head up, shifting to his knees, and stared incredulously at Potter.

"Sorry?" Draco asked disbelievingly. "What do _you_ have to be sorry for?" He was the one who ran off, the one who put them both closer to being truly dead.

"I—" Potter shook his head, looking much older than his slight body should have allowed. "I should have told you the first night," he said. "I should have been more up front. I just—I was being selfish," Potter admitted. "I liked having someone who wouldn't—wouldn't leave."

"There isn't really anywhere I can go," Draco pointed out pragmatically, his eyes drooping from the pain and his own stilted adrenalin. "No matter what you say, I can't really leave."

"You might," Potter insisted. "You'll figure it out on your own, just like everyone else, and—" He looked down, gripping the edge of his skirt tightly. "You'll go home."

 _Home_. The real world.

"That might happen," Draco said. "I might leave. But I might not. I might get stuck here." The _like you_ was left unsaid. Potter might not have said it aloud, but they both believed it. After so long, it didn't seem possible for Potter to escape.

"Your arm." Potter wouldn't meet his eyes. He was starting to sink through the seat, and Draco closed his eyes, focusing harder than he'd needed to in some time, and grabbed Potter's shoulder, pulling him close and keeping the boy as solid as he possibly could. "Does it hurt?"

"I didn't think I could get injured here," Draco said slowly. "How do I fix it?" His arm felt stiff with the pain, and the bloody drying into the torn cloth irritated the wound.

"You don't." Potter shrugged, putting the car back in gear. "It'll go away, so long as you don't mess up again. Everything works differently here, remember?"

Draco did remember, found it damn near impossible to forget. Any physical desires were almost completely erased, leaving emotions as the overwhelming driving force behind the strange pseudo world. "But then why am I bleeding?" Draco was bewildered. "None of this makes any sense!"

"You can't put rules to this place, Draco. This isn't our world. It's beyond that, and as long I've been here, I've only ever figured out not to go where I'm not supposed to," Potter said, chagrined.

"And where we're not supposed to go," Draco interjected, "basically amounts to the dark."

"Anywhere without lights." Potter nodded.

"That's a load of metaphorical bullshit, isn't it?" Draco sneered. "How quaint."

"It probably is!" Potter laughed, smiling freely for the first time since they'd arrived in Little Whinging.

"You really haven't figured out anything else, though? No clues as to what we should be doing?"

"No," Potter said, then hesitated. "Well, there might be something."

"What?" Anything was better than nothing. Draco sat up straighter, eyes torn from the window to focus on Potter, who immediately looked at the road.

"The people who I've seen go through here," he began, "all end up learning something. Remember how I said that, when you first arrived?" Draco nodded. "Well, it's always the same. They're here, they're angry, they give in, then…"

"An epiphany?" It made some sense, Draco supposed, in a very cliché, trite sort of way. "That sounds like something that belongs on a greeting card."

"No, I think it's more that we're supposed to figure out why we didn't die," Potter continued. "There's a reason. I mean, we—both of us—should have both died, right? That's how we ended up here." His expression was intense, and Draco was unable to look away. "We're alive for a reason," Potter said softly. "We've just got to figure out _why_."

That 'why' was what had them trapped there. It made sense, really. Only, Draco couldn't think of a single reason as to why he would be better off alive. There wasn't anything he needed, nothing really to go home to. He was alone. And Potter…

The boy, he thought, was likely more alone that Draco himself.

 

*

  
While staying in Little Whinging was the last thing Draco wanted to do, it seemed neither he nor Potter had much of a choice.

Draco ended up having to half-carry, half-drag Potter's fading body from the car, careful to stay in the lit areas of the town. Eventually, Draco caught sight of a foreclosure sign in the yard of one of the modest little houses in town, and he managed to fade himself through the front door. Potter fell through it easily; keeping the boy from fading straight through the floor, on the other hand, was what Draco had the most difficulty with.

"Can't you focus?" Draco asked, tightening his grip on Potter's waist as he dragged both of them up the narrow flight of stairs. He was becoming desperate as his focus began slipping, his own pain and fatigue making it almost impossible to hold on to Potter.

Potter barely acknowledged the question, stirring lightly in Draco's arms.

"Potter," Draco tried again, voice strained. He forced his way up another step, then another. Potter didn't respond aside from opening his eyes, slits of green peering up through drooping eyelids. Potter smiled, a brief and fleeting expression, before his eyes fell shut again.

Seeing Potter in such a terrible state felt almost as terrifying as facing down the creatures in the dark. The boy looked so fragile, wasting away, his body completely destabilized. It was all Draco could do to will Potter solid.

When Draco finally managed to get them both upstairs, he quickly found a bedroom. The walls were completely bare, as though it had not been occupied for a long time, and a large mattress in the middle of the floor was the sole item within the room.

He couldn't let Potter go for fear that the boy would sink through the mattress and down to only God knew where, so Draco collapsed onto the mattress and allowed Potter to fall with him, holding the boy against his chest.

"Thanks." Potter's voice, nearly inaudible, barely caught Draco's attention. Draco craned his neck down, ear nearly level with Potter's mouth.

"It's fine," Draco said. "I owe you." Potter had saved him, after all.

"You didn't have to." Potter smiled up at him sleepily, exhaustion shining through his words.

Draco lay on his back, mindful of his wounded arm, and let Potter's head rest against his chest, confident that the boy wouldn't be able to fade through. "I know."

In very little time at all, much to Draco's amazement, Potter's breathing had levelled out, his eyelids fluttering in sleep. Since Draco had come to the world in between, neither of them had slept at all, the need for it completely erased. But now, Potter slept, his breath fanning across Draco's exposed collar as though he was alive.

And yet, the strangest thing he'd encountered in the new world by far was the thought moving slowly through his mind, working its way into his deep memory: the moment, Potter asleep against him, was one that Draco wouldn't mind having, again and again, in the living world.

*

They made it a habit to stay out of the dark. Night seemed to fall spontaneously, and Draco was constantly reminding himself that time passed differently in the In Between, though he never so much as glanced at another newspaper. Following the latest incident, which held the paper as the catalyst, he'd not been able to pick anything up and had resumed fading randomly into the ground with only Potter to keep him on his feet.

Potter, however, was a different story. By the time Draco's arm had healed and his fatigue had disappeared, Potter was only just able to hold himself solid while standing alone again. Draco was thrilled when Potter had managed to stand up off the mattress by himself, but he privately thought that it might take time, getting used to not holding on to Potter.

"This isn't fair!" Potter laughed self-deprecatingly.

"Please," Draco snorted, "This is pathetic. You'll be able to stay solid all you want in no time, but I still can't even hold a door properly!"

"Why would you need to?" Potter asked, and Draco scowled at him because _needing to_ was not even close to being the point of that complaint.

"I hate it here," Draco said in lieu of an answer. "I hate everything about this place!"

"It's hard not to!" Potter kept smiling. The idiot had been in an excellent mood ever since Draco's late night excursion.

Once they were both—more or less—back on their feet, it was Potter's turn for what promised to be hellish venture.

They were close to the Manor. It shouldn't have shocked Draco as much as it had when Potter mentioned it, but then, his life before his father sent him off to boarding school often felt like nothing more than a dream.

"Have you been there recently?" Potter asked. They were still curled up on the mattress, the pretence of healing and rest long since unusable. Potter was leaning against the pillows he'd found in the hallway closet, Draco's head propped up in his lap.

Draco gave an irritable snort and closed his eyes.

"Oh, come on, now!" Potter smacked the side of his head lightly, scowling down at Draco. "Stop pretending to be asleep!"

"It's not pretending," Draco muttered, but there was nothing for it. "Fine, you damnable nag! What do you want?"

Potter slid his fingers through Draco's hair, stroking his scalp mindlessly. "I was wondering," Potter tried again, "if you'd been to the manor recently. We're very close, you know."

"Recently," Draco echoed. "Well, I suppose you could say that."

"What does that mean?"

Draco hesitated. Potter hadn't asked yet about how Draco had ended up where they were, but the question was expected, the threat of it a constant.

It was just too bad that Draco didn't have very many answers.

"It was the last place I went," he said finally, frowning when Potter's hand stilled in his hair.

"You—that's where you…?" Potter couldn't seem to say the words, but hand picked up the pace again, fingers threading through Draco's hair. It was as much a comfort to Draco as to himself.

"Yes," Draco said simply.

After hearing Potter's story, seeing the alley he'd been brutalized in, Draco found it easy to tell the boy what happened. A fire, one he shouldn't have even been fighting, at the manor he'd loved as a child, his mother's last home before her death. He told Potter what little he could remember of the night, of watching the fire crawl towards him, of seeing his fate long before the flames had overtaken him.

When Draco had told all he could remember of the night, Potter smoothed his hair and sighed, and said five simple words: "Let's go to the manor."

*

Potter was unable to let the idea go, much to Draco's annoyance, and it was with a heavy heart that he consented to Potter's demands. They waited, caution now a focal point in their travels, until after another night had come and gone. Then they made their way out of the town of Little Whinging and walked straight down the main road, alone save for the shadows of cars passing in another world.

"This is stupid," Draco informed him. "My father didn't even live there when I—when the fire happened. The house is burnt down, and God only knows—"

"Don't bring God into this now," Potter warned. "You wouldn't want him to show up, would you?"

"Can he do that?" Draco looked around quickly. "Have you seen him?"

"No. I just don't like taking chances." Potter smoothed out his skirt and attempted to tug the wrinkles out of his camisole. The whole ensemble still looked out of place no matter how many times Draco looked at Potter. For a cross-dresser, the boy seemed to lack any inherent fashion sense. "When was the last time you were there?"

"I think I was… fifteen?" Draco frowned. "I can't recall exactly when, but I was around that age. I was on holiday. I was back in school not two weeks before my father had sent a letter saying he'd sold the manor."

"Did he say why?" Draco shook his head, and Potter whistled. "Weird man, your father, if he just up and sells nice old houses like that! I went there once. I'd have never sold it, let me tell you!"

"Why were you there?" Draco gave him a suspicious look, stopping dead on the road, and Potter stumbled into him.

"My cousin wanted to see the house," Potter shrugged.

"Your cousin? You mean that—that great tub of lard?" Draco sneered, remembering the boy with clarity. "Name began with a D, right?" He'd been in the year above him and Potter and was quite possibly the least pleasant human being he'd ever met. "Why would he want to see it?"

"He wanted to live in it, I think." Potter's eyes sparkled with amusement. "He was hoping you'd take a liking to him, you know. That's why he always hung around our class."

"Take a _liking to him_?" Draco swallowed his disgust. "Just what do you mean by that?"

"Oh, not like that!" Potter rolled his eyes, walking around him and heading back down the road. "He hated fags." The word hit Draco like a punch in the stomach, a sudden memory of his grade school days, just before he'd been sent off to boarding school, flitting through his mind: he and Potter, the entirety of their classmates standing around them, the word leaving his mouth.

Draco wondered if Potter had said that on purpose. No, he told himself, Potter didn't care, not anymore. If he did, he'd not be bothering with helping him. He would have left him.

Shaking his head, Draco took off after Potter and pushed the memory from his mind.

*

The manor was separated from the rest of the world by the heavily wooded area surrounding it, the thickest part of it standing directly between the manor itself and Little Whinging. Draco's father had always said that the wood had been planted by Malfoys, by which he likely meant the wood had been planted by Malfoy _money._ Potter didn't look impressed.

"They just wanted to make it difficult to get to without a car!" Potter put a hand on a tree, breathing deeply. "I don't remember it being so difficult when I did this with Dudley."

"You're out of shape, then." Draco walked right on, ignoring Potter's agitated huff. The manor would be just beyond the dip in the hill, he knew, the path imprinted in his mind.

Draco stopped just at the beginning of the incline, lips thin as he recalled the fire. The thought had never quite settled in, that the manor was likely no longer there. For as long as Draco remembered, his childhood home had been a part of his life. Until his mother's death, he had never once questioned that he would one day own the manor.

It was a pity how few childhood dreams ever survived to adulthood.

"What?" Potter had jogged to catch up with him. "Are we taking a break?" He looked eager to, and Draco suddenly found himself in no hurry to continue.

"Why not?" It was a nice day, he reasoned with himself, and it wasn't as if the manor—or what was left of it—would be going anywhere. He and Potter had all the time in the world.

Potter dropped to the ground immediately, back against a tree, heaving a relieved sigh. "I don't think I've ever been so tired here," he said. "It feels strange!"

"I'm sure I can think of at least one time," Draco said dryly, and Potter grinned sheepishly, pulling his skirt down his knees as he shifted his legs.

"I'd almost forgotten about that," Potter admitted. "Weird."

Draco shrugged, his attention torn between staring at Potter's sweaty knees and the desire to get up and keep moving. Possibly in the opposite direction of the manor.

"What?"

"What do you mean?" Draco asked, frowning. "What? Stop looking at me like that!"

"You're spacing out," Potter accused, shifting himself into a more comfortable position. The dirt stuck to his bare legs. Draco reached forward and brushed them clean, ignoring the odd look Potter was giving him. "You're so weird," Potter said, smiling fondly. His face relaxed, and Draco felt his tension dissipate at Potter's open expression.

"It just feels strange, being here," Draco said finally, sitting down next to Potter. "It's been years since my family's lived here, and I hadn't spent much time in it at all after I turned, what? Thirteen, I think." He hadn't spent much time with his family, even, after his father had him shipped off to a boarding school on the continent.

"Did you like living here?" Potter ripped out a handful of grass, tossing it carelessly to the side before wrenching another handful from the ground.

"Yes," Draco answered automatically. The manor had been his entire childhood, hundreds of memories all behind the heavy oak doors. He missed it, missed his father's study, sitting in the chair and wondering if his legs would ever touch the ground.

"Oh," was all Potter said. "So why did you move?"

"What makes you think I had a choice?" Draco returned. "After I left our old school, I went to a boarding school on the continent. I only came home for a few weeks every year, so it's not as if I had any reason to complain if my father made the decision to leave." It wasn't as if complaining would have made a difference, not with his mother… gone. It was a darkly humorous thought, thinking of his poor, dead mother while he clung desperately to the stretched-out thread of his life.

"You miss it, though," Potter prompted.

"Yes." Draco leaned back against the tree, his shoulder touching Potter's. "I do miss it."

He couldn't sit still for long. It was as though something was pulling at him, tugging at something inside him to get up, keep moving.

"Draco," Potter called, "what are you running for?"

He'd gotten up in a sudden frenzy, his feet already moving, and ignored Potter's puzzled cries.

"Draco!"

"We don't want to get stuck out here, do we?" Draco called back. "Stop being so slow!" He shouldn't antagonize Potter, but he felt out of control, so strong was the desire to see the manor. Something in the back of his mind was moving restlessly, a dark reminder he desperately wanted to forget.

In a way, Draco knew exactly what he was going to see.

Potter didn't say anything when he caught up, his jogging pace trailing off until he stood stock still at Draco's side, mouthing hanging open. The manor was gone.

That, in itself, was a feat. The house had taken up most of the land in the valley area, had been there for well over a century, and it was just—gone. In its place rested charred remains, fragments of Draco's life littering the surrounding area. Even the grass, the beautifully manicured lawns, had been destroyed.

The fire had taken his house, and the fire had taken him, casting him into the strange world in between the living and the dead. Hands fisted, released, tightened again as Draco stood, unmoving, at the sight. He could remember so well, seeing it. It made the entire situation so much more _real._

Draco couldn't possibly have lived through that.

"This—this is where it happened, isn't it?" Potter's face pinched, his voice pitched casual. "Where you—"

"Died," Draco finished for him.

"You're not dead yet."

"I'm as good as," Draco threw back, and he truly believed it. Whatever was left of him in the living world couldn't have been much, not with this sort of devastation. And this—

He had _seen_ it, had fought it and failed. His disappointment was nearly tangible. Potter shifted, uncomfortable.

"Are you—" Potter looked away. How could he ask if Draco was all right? Seeing his home, no matter who had owned it at the time, in such a state—there weren't even words for it.

"I never wanted to leave it," Draco said suddenly. "When my father wrote to tell me he'd sold the manor, I didn't speak to him for three months. I stayed at the school for Christmas." It was just a house, his father had said. Could Draco possibly be less mature?

But it wasn't just a house. Everything important in Draco's life had been at the manor, every happy memory, everything about his mother—

The last place he'd been with her, spoken to her was that house. The manor was all he had left of her, and he had been trying so hard to get it back. Draco would have gladly sold his soul for the house his mother had taken such pride in, the house his father had so easily cast aside without a second thought following her death. It had been the only thing he had left of her, and now he had _nothing._

"Draco?" Potter's voice broke through his thoughts, clearing the storm. "Maybe we should—leave," he said, words breaking. "We can come back." His tone held a pleading note, and Draco looked again at the charred remains of his life, giving a terse nod.

"Tomorrow," he said slowly. "We'll come back tomorrow."

*

They left the manor and its surrounding grounds for Little Whinging, heading straight to a nearly empty diner. As the ghostly figures of the employees shut off the lights, unaware of their presence, Draco rested his forehead on the table and found himself caught between wishing he were back in his home and wishing he were dead, six feet under, a foot of earth the only thing separating him from his mother.

"How did she die?" Potter's voice was quiet, had been since he'd seen the house. The streetlights cast a sickly yellow glow through window, and they were caught in it. Everything felt so surreal, and it struck Draco then, for the first time, just how wrong everything was in the In Between.

"A fire," he said. "She wasn't even sick." It might've been all right if she had been, if there'd been no way to save her. If he'd expected it. As if he were thirteen again and standing in the headmaster's office, Draco's hands shook as they had when he'd held that letter, his eyes rolling repeatedly over the same words: _your mother has passed_. Passed, as if she wasn't even gone. Just an afterthought to his father. She'd done what he needed her to do; she'd given him his heir.

She deserved more than that.

"Was it—" Potter looked uncomfortable. "She was murdered?"

"No." Draco laughed, a hollow sound. "It was an accident. She was on holiday in France. One of the women she was with—they let their cigarette burn in the ashtray, and the table caught fire." It was so stupid. He hardly even had words for it.

"So all of them died?"

"Just my mother." The woman who'd started the fire had walked out and carried on like she'd done nothing wrong. He'd seen her at the funeral, all dressed in her finest, face made up. She'd kissed his father's cheek and _smiled_. Draco had wished she'd been the one to die.

"Is that why you do what you do?" Potter asked.

"I don't understand."

"You're a fireman, aren't you?" Potter's head cocked to the side, curiosity playing across his face. It was such a strange question. Was that the reason? Had Draco snubbed his father's wishes for that?

"I don't know," Draco answered honestly.

"It wouldn't be a bad reason," Potter reassured. It felt like Potter was reading his mind, and Draco wished Potter would stay out of his head, if that was what he was doing at all. Perhaps Draco was easier to read than he'd thought himself.

"It doesn't matter," Draco said sharply. "I'm not nearly so sentimental."

"There's nothing wrong with doing it for your mum," Potter said again, frowning. "You don't have to pretend you don't care."

"I never said—" Draco bit off, clenching his teeth. He didn't need Potter telling him how he should feel. "It doesn't even matter," he said, looking anywhere but at Potter. "She's dead, remember?"

The air between them was electric. Potter looked angrier than Draco had seen, and he felt that much closer to the past, to the days when all he could see was Potter's anger, green eyes coloured with hate.

He didn't want that. The realization of that, of wanting Potter to care, was nearly painful in its sudden intensity.

"My mum's dead too," Potter said quietly. "I don't even know how she died. You're lucky that you have even that."

"Those relatives of yours wouldn't even give you that?" Draco laughed, but it was weak. Everything felt so stiff.

Potter didn't answer. He stared out the window, not even minding Draco's presence.

"I'm sorry you lost her," Potter said finally. "But don't you think—don't you think she'd want you to be _happy_?"

"Of course she would!" Draco said defensively. "She wasn't like your aunt," he added, remembering the woman and the way she treated Potter, so similarly to her son. Potter startled, stung. "I'm—"

"Don't," Potter said. "You don't even know what you're saying. I can't even be mad at you, you—you knob head!"

It was something Potter would have said back in school. He was so young. Draco snorted, a crooked smile breaking over his face with great reluctance. It was easy to forget that Potter was really only a teenager, an odd mixture of a boy and a man and something else altogether. The skirt made it that much more difficult to pin down.

"You're—" Draco shook his head, pretending he wasn't smiling, that the pleased flush blooming on Potter's cheeks wasn't fetching. "You're weird," he settled on. The tenseness of the previous moment gone, the two smiled, taking hold of the small bit of levity in the grey overcast of the In Between.

"I bet," Potter said, that awkward, boyish grin fading, "that your mum misses you, too."

"Do you think she was ever here?" Draco peered out the window again, as though searching for a sign of her.

"I don't think so." Potter shook his head. "It seems—I don't know. I've always wondered why some people come here and some don't."

Draco hummed thoughtfully, fingertips drumming against the table. "People who aren't ready to let go?"

"No one's ready to let go, not really. If that were the case—well, I don't really know!" Potter sighed, leaning forward, his elbows on the table and face cradled in his hands. "Nothing about this place makes any sense, and it never has."

"Even after all this time?" Draco prompted. "You really don't know anything about it?"

"No," Potter admitted. "I've seen people come and go, and I've seen a few people just—disappear. They wandered." He shrugged with a hesitant smile. "But they don't normally bother with me."

"I wonder why that is," Draco muttered. "You're a strange person, I've said it before."

"And you aren't the first." Potter huffed. "I get it, I'm odd. But you'd think—Oh, I don't know. Don't you think someone would have asked? It was pure luck that you appeared where you did."

"Right next to you," Draco remembered. "No, it was just bizarre. I thought you were an angel."

There was a pause, and the red stain was back full-force on Potter's face.

"Not—not like that!" Draco said quickly. "Just—I thought I was _dead_ , all right!"

"I see," Potter laughed. "Of course. You didn't recognize me at all."

"Once I thought about it, you still look the same. Only, you know," Draco said, "with a skirt on."

"Of course."

It felt natural. Even with the threat of death hanging over them, Draco was able to pretend, if only for a moment, that it was just them, just him and Potter, sitting in a café and talking about Potter's skirt like that was all that mattered in the world.

It felt like eternity.

*

One last time, Draco thought to himself. One last time to see the manor and he wouldn't need anything else.

Draco had to go back to the manor, had to see for himself. As they'd walked from the town, Draco let Potter grab his hand, needing the comfort. He didn't want to be alone.

"I don't even know what I'm looking for," Draco said. He felt tired, something he shouldn't feel at all where they were. Potter looked it as well, his eyes heavy and his skin pale and drawn.

It all felt so final.

"Maybe that's the point," Potter said. He squeezed Draco's hand.

There weren't words for what they were doing, no words for the why of the situation. That was all the In Between came down to: instincts that begged acknowledgement.

"We'll have to be careful," Potter said as they made the climb back through the forest, travelling once again along the winding trail to the manor. The implication was obvious, and Draco's mind took him back to Little Whinging, to creatures lying in wait, an overwhelming darkness pressing against his eyes.

The idea of being caught at the manor's charred grounds when night fell should have terrified Draco. There were no lights there, no covering. And now, there weren't even any buildings to stow away in.

All he felt was a strange sense of calm. He and Potter walked with purpose, very few words between them as they made their way back to the ruins of the manor.

Draco kept returning to Potter's words, of the simple belief that Draco's mother would have wanted nothing more than for him to be happy. Perhaps she had. As though a clock was winding down and leaving them a limited space in time, Draco sped up the pace, pulling Potter along behind him.

Potter had been watching him, a strange knowing look gleaming in his green eyes. With every step, Draco felt himself coming closer. A sense of peace descended on him.

"Where should we go?" Potter stopped just at the edge of the dip in the land, waiting. The manor—what was left of it—was there, just beyond the horizon.

"Just—let's just keep walking," Draco said, driven to move. He felt restless and the feeling was foreign. So much of the world they were in was static, moving so slowly alongside the living, that Draco lost touch with the need for forward motion. He just _was_ , he and Potter both.

"All right." Potter didn't ask. Draco wondered if, just maybe, Potter knew how he felt, was struck with the same desire so unlike the rest of the dark half-world.

The remains of the manor looked wrong in the middle of the tranquil surroundings. Debris was everywhere, covering the walking path and spreading as far as they eye could see, charred ground stretching into the horizon.

"What was it like?" Potter asked.

"That's a morbid question," Draco muttered. "Well, I don't remember it very well. I can—up to a certain point, I can sort of see it. But—it's like it happened to someone else," he finished, unsure. "Was that… was that how it was for you?"

"I don't remember much about my life," Potter said, "outside of that one day."

Draco looked away.

"I'm sure it's different for everyone," Potter said. He didn't look any more comforted by the statement than Draco did. "One day, we won't be here anymore," he said. "And none of this—everything we've been through here—it won't matter. We'll just be home, wherever we belong."

"Do you really believe that?" Draco asked. He wanted to believe what Potter said so desperately, wanted to think that one day he'd be back in the real world. If he could just get back, he could—

But no, Draco had no time to ponder what-ifs. There was no reason for it.

"It was a huge house." Potter was still talking. "It's unbelievable how much of it was destroyed!"

"I have a hard time believing it myself." Draco kicked a charred slab of wood, sending it flying a few feet into a pile of smoky debris. If he was remembering correctly, that pile had once been the gardener's shed. "I can still see how it used to be. I just—I don't want to think that this is it."

Draco never imagined the situation, that he would be trapped with a person he hadn't thought of in years, spilling his guts, fighting for the right to live.

 _Everything is gone_. The thought jarred Draco, shook him to his core and left him cold.

"What now?" Potter asked, standing closer. Draco watched him for a moment, watched the way Potter appeared immune to the world around them, every piece of him solid and unmoving in the face of the in between's cold temperament. Draco sighed, shook his head, and took a step closer to Potter.

"Let's keep going," he urged again. Potter looked reluctant. "Just a little bit longer," Draco promised. A strange numbness had spread over him, and he didn't feel it necessary to leave.

"You aren't worried?" Potter asked. Draco shook his head, unable to think of a single reason why he should have been.

As they walked through the wreckage of Draco's old home, neither of them spared a second to notice the sun's slow descent behind the trees.

*

Night was falling. The forest stretched endlessly around them, the sun sinking further and further, the monsters of the In Between nipping at its heels.

"What do we do?" Draco asked. Despite what they both knew was coming, Draco felt oddly at peace, as though he'd been waiting so long for the perfect timing.

But Potter—Potter's face looked sickly pale in the fading light. He didn't answer, eyes trained on the ground.

"Potter?" Draco tried again. He had the sudden urge to grab the boy and shake him, to demand that he act like the man he really was. It wasn't right for Potter to give in. The very idea that such an indomitable soul would wait quietly for death left Draco queasy.

"There's nothing _to_ do, Draco." Potter's voice broke the ominous quiet of the forest and jerked Draco back to reality. "Look around us," he said. "This is it."

 _This is it._

Three simple words and Draco felt what little resistance he had left die. There wasn't any point in running. Potter stood next to him, smiling, and Draco cleared his mind, holding that image tightly.

"It's all right, then?" He gave Potter a searching look. "You're all right?"

"I don't know why you're asking me." Potter laughed softly. "I've been here for so long that I almost can't remember where I was before. It'll be nice, being somewhere else."

"But what if—" Draco sucked in a harsh breath, teeth chattering. "What if there isn't anywhere else?"

"Then there won't be anything to be afraid of," Potter said. As the last of the light began to fade, he took Draco's hand. "It can't hurt anymore than being alive." Potter knew pain, greater pain than Draco ever had. Draco squeezed the small hand clasped in his own, fingers intertwined.

"I'm all right, then." Draco swallowed, his heart stuttering in his chest, his blood pounding. He ignored the involuntary way his teeth were clacking together, biting his jaw down for a moment before releasing them.

"You'll stay with me, won't you?" Potter sounded almost timid.

"There's nowhere else I could go, exactly," Draco joked. The last of the light faded into the horizon, and the forest fell dark around them. He listened to the sound of Potter's breathing, his eyes falling shut.

"Good." Potter's voice sounded much closer. "I'm not afraid to die, so long as I'm with you." Potter's chest, so much thinner, pressed into his, his hand releasing Draco's and arms winding up around his neck. It didn't seem at all strange that Potter's lips should suddenly be on his own.

In the darkness, at the end of their world, Draco contented himself with Potter's lips and knew with absolute certainty that everything would be all right.

*

 _"I'm so sorry, darling." His mother leaned down and kissed his cheek. "I'll see you for the holiday, of course."_

 _"Yes, Mother." The obliged response. It would have been childish to demand she stay until he left, to want her to feel he was more important than a group of old socialite women who couldn't care less about her. "Have a good trip." There was no emotion behind his words. The wish was empty._

 _"I love you," she said quietly. The words caught her son off guard, and Draco stared, eyes wide. "I'm proud of you." She picked up her bags and gave him a soft smile._

 _When she walked out the door, Draco stood and wished he'd said something back._

*

When Draco opened his eyes, the world was clear, as though a long-standing fog had lifted. That the world should be so clear felt surreal, and the sterile white of the room left him with a bad taste. Underneath the starched sheets, he was alone.

Potter was gone.

In his place stood a thousand red flashes beeping, flowers, and cardboard affections, wrapped into a blur of florescent lights and pastel colours that burned to look at.

"—been too long, the doctor—"

"He's awake!"

His father was in the doorway, and it made little sense that he should be there, wherever _there_ was. But he was, and why should he be there?

"You're awake." His father's hand felt cool on his forehead. "Draco?"

He grunted, and his father took a step closer.

"I'll get the doctor."

A doctor, Draco thought. A hospital.

He had learned.

He was alive.

His father smiled, the expression out of place on his normally stoic face, but for all that Draco wished that his father would care, the only thing he wanted in that moment was Potter in his skirt, pushed up against Draco's side, steady in the belief that an eternity was stretched out before them.

*

Draco spent three months in the hospital after he woke up, but it took another two before he could live on his own again. Skin grafts, physical therapy, and nearly half a year of desperation for something that might not have existed anywhere but in his own mind.

"I think I'll pass, if it's all the same to you." Draco rolled his eyes. Nott might have been blind to the action, but it felt good all the same.

"You haven't been anywhere in months!" Nott's voice sparked across the line. "Aren't you getting worked up? All this doing nothing. Have you even had a girl—"

"As you well know," he cut the man off, "I'm _technically_ still in recovery from that _minor_ accident I had a while back. You know, the one with the fire?"

"Very funny," Nott grumbled. "A real laugh, you are. Well, fine then. But the offer still stands!"

Draco tended to stay in the kitchen, staring out the window of his second storey flat, mind adjusting to the unreasonable stability of life. His shelves were lined with books on theories—dream worlds and comas. They all said the same thing: it wasn't real. A dream was all that the In Between amounted to, one that he'd locked himself into in order to maintain brain activity.

According to the books, Potter was a figment of his imagination, no matter how real he'd been when they were children. Draco had long since quit buying any more books, and he'd been using the most recent addition to the collection as a drink coaster.

There was nothing left. Draco felt emptier than he had in the In Between when Potter was at his side, a warm comfort in a cold world. Despite returning to life, returning to the normalcy of nights without fear, he could not allow himself to let go. He was wasting away.

Nott's voice crackled again, sounding clear from the receiver clutched tightly in Draco's hand.

"You still there?" Nott was saying, and Draco pursed his lips, taking a deep breath.

He was wasting away, just him and his books and the image of Potter's last smile.

"Fine," Draco said, a heavy breath. "I'll go. Where are we meeting?"

He should have been happier. Like Potter said, his mother wouldn't have wanted him to be unhappy, no matter the cause.

 _Potter wouldn't have wanted this for me._

*

The bar was one they'd never been to before, one with a calmer atmosphere. It had been at Blaise Zabini's urging that they went somewhere that wouldn't _stress Draco out, the great ponce!_

Draco had gone out with the expectation of misery, but when he followed Nott into the tiny, smoky building, that particular expectation disappeared immediately.

It didn't occur to him that he'd nearly dismissed the opportunity. Nott was saying something, standing just in the doorway, trying to pull Draco toward a back booth where their co-workers waited. No, Draco wouldn't go, not when Potter was _right there_ watching him, one hand on the bar top and the other tugging at the fringe of his skirt, the same nervous habit he'd had—

It had been real, Draco realized with a rush. _Potter_ had been real, the strange world they'd been stuck in, all of it.

Nott jerked his arm, and Draco shoved him away, already making his way to the bar, ignoring whatever drivel Nott kept spewing behind him.

"Potter," he said. "I see you've finally changed your clothes." Potter stared, shocked, but only for a moment. In the next beat, he laughed, a note of hysteria in the sudden burst of humour.

"I didn't think you were real," Potter admitted with a small smile. His glasses were different, the frames more sophisticated. He looked beautiful, trussed up in the way he'd never been able to in the other world, less a boy in a skirt and more a simple beautiful. Potter's legs, bare, sprouted up from sharp black heels, jetting up into a dark dress, the material short and tight.

Draco had never felt as self-conscious in slacks and a casual shirt as he did in that moment.

"I wasn't sure myself." Draco sat down next to him, the noise from the bar nonexistent, the room and all its occupants spirited away in Potter's wake. "How long—"

"Six months," Potter said, not missing a beat. He was still reading Draco's mind, apparently. "And you?"

"Six months," Draco said back. They stared at each other, uninhibited, the colour and life of the room flowing around them. "It's strange, being out together. You know, it being night."

"I was terrified to go outside for a long time," Potter admitted. "I kept thinking—" He took a deep breath. "God, it was _real_."

Draco knew exactly how he felt, the weight that had been lifted off Potter's shoulders. Months on end thinking that they'd made it all up, made each other up—it was enough to drive a man mad.

"You look good," Draco said suddenly, unable to stop himself. Potter did look good, his hair longer, his features softer. He was wearing make-up, and his clothes, his glasses—they were all much more modern, not things he'd found in the bottom of his homely aunt's closet.

"So do you." Potter's voice was shy. They both sounded uncertain.

Draco knew, though, without a doubt, what he wanted.

"Come home with me," Draco said.

"But you just got here!" Potter's face stained a bright red. The implication was, of course, clear to them both.

"This isn't where I want to be," Draco said. "We don't—" He looked down. _I missed you._

Potter watched him for a long moment and then reached forward, covering Draco's hand with his own.

"I missed you, too." Potter smiled, and the world rolled off Draco's shoulders.

*

The cab ride back to Draco's flat felt as though it had taken hours. Draco had been unable to focus on anything Potter said, his hand clutching Potter's thigh, thankful that he no longer looked like just a teenage boy. Potter felt so _real_. Draco could take his eyes off Potter. When the cab stopped in front of his flat, letting go of Potter felt a bit like death, a piece of soul crawling out the door right after the beautiful man. It was melodramatic, something Draco would expect out of a soppy move, but for the first time since he'd opened his eyes in the hospital, Draco felt _alive_.

They stumbled blindly into Draco's flat, so intent on each other that neither knew how they'd made it all the way there. They went past the books, past Draco's kitchen, falling into the bedroom.

"I don't know how to do this." It seemed important to admit. Draco looked at Potter's bare chest, the top of his dress bunched around his waist, his hands itching to push the skirt up Potter's hips and look at what waited beneath.

"You'll be fine," Potter said. His face was bright red, eyes focused on a point just over Draco's shoulder. "I've never done this before either, you know."

Of course he hadn't. Potter hadn't ever had sex, most likely, now that Draco thought about it. He put a hand on Potter's waist, marvelling at how slim he was from all those years strapped in a hospital bed. Potter shivered, and Draco stroked his thumb against the smooth skin of his stomach.

"You know how," Draco said. He had to know, because Draco hadn't exactly run out and bought a guide on how to fuck men since he'd been back in the real world. He'd barely wanked, for fuck's sake!

"Yeah." Potter stepped back and climbed onto the bed, getting up on his knees. He pulled the skirt up to mid-thigh and stopped, his eyes downcast, hands trembling. "You just—please come here," he cut himself off and his voice broke. "I—I can't do this if you're just going to stand there like that. Like this is some kind of chore for you!"

"Sorry," Draco said quickly, his voice pitched higher than normal. He didn't have a clue what to do, only had women to go by, but he did want to see what Potter had under his skirt. He wondered, vaguely, if the man wore knickers. "Pull it up," he ordered, putting one knee on the bed. Potter looked almost frightened for a moment, then drew the skirt higher. "Up!" The slinky material bunched around Potter's waist, drawn as high as he could get it. Draco swallowed harshly.

Potter _was_ wearing knickers.

"Take them off." His brain took a backseat to his cock as Potter held his skirt up with one hand and jerked his white knickers down with the other, his swollen cock distending the crotch and making it difficult to manoeuvre; the red bleeding into Potter's cheeks could have been from frustration, embarrassment, or arousal at that point. Draco finally climbed all the way on the bed and knocked Potter's hand away, tugging the plain knickers down to his knobby knees.

Potter's cock, bright red and shaved clean, jutted out obscenely, holding the material of the skirt in place all on its own. Potter looked embarrassed, gazing up at him through hooded eyes. Draco's lids fluttered, a pulse of white-hot lust thrumming through his veins at the sight. He grabbed his own crotch tightly and willed control back to his body.

Potter was beautiful, and Draco cursed himself for never having noticed before. But now, he knew, there was time. Now, he could appreciate what he could have had all along.

"Is it—is this all right?" Potter's voice was quiet. He couldn't seem to meet Draco's eyes, and Draco was overtaken with the sudden desire to see those bright eyes glazed with lust. His hand tipped Potter's chin up and pulled off the sleek metal frames that suited him so much better than his old ones.

"Yes," Draco said, "I think it is."

Potter smiled, and Draco leaned in, pressing their lips together, the feel of it so much more satisfying than a frantic meshing of mouths goaded on by the looming threat of death. They might not have eternity, Draco knew, but they had _then_. That was more than enough.


End file.
